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Late pass of Cunningham Produces Victory at Milwaukee

By Dave Lewandowski

WEST ALLIS, Wis. – Wade Cunningham checked out early, but it was Jaime Camara who held on late.

Camara, who started fourth in the Milwaukee 100, passed the pole sitter in Turn 3 on a Lap 98 restart and cleared the finish line 0.6614 of a second ahead in the No. 11 Neo Quimica car. Jonathan Klein finished third for the third consecutive race, while Bobby Wilson was fourth.

Cunningham led 98 laps and appeared well on his way to his second victory of the season. When he lapped fellow front-row starter Jay Howard on Lap 51, everyone in the grandstands knew the No. 1 Brian Stewart Racing car was too strong this day on the flat racetrack.

But when Tom Wood brought out the lone caution of the race when the No. 42 Kenn Hardley Racing car spun and made contact with the inside retaining wall on the backstretch on Lap 95, it forced a green-white-checkered scenario. Last week at Nashville Superspeedway, Howard got the jump on Cunningham on a restart and went on to his first Indy Pro Series victory.

'At the end of the race, the rear tires were getting worse so that helped the front of the car,' Camara said. 'I had less understeer at the end of the race, that's why I was fast. I was just saving the tires until the end of the race because I thought we could have a surprise on the restart, like we did.'

Camara possibly could have caught Cunningham regardless of the brief caution. After moving into second on the second lap, Camara remained within sight the first half of the race and whittled the deficit between Laps 60 (4.5360 seconds) and 93 (1.0393 seconds).

'We were just running our own race up front,' Cunningham said. 'A couple of times I lost it in Turn 2. That pushed the gap in to about two and half seconds. On the restart, I didn't get away very well. I held the lead down the frontstraight. By the time I got to Turn 1, I still had marbles under the front. I missed the corner pretty much, understeered out of Turn 1 and then really high in Turn 2. It allowed Jaime to get out from under me on the exit of Turn 2.

'After that, there wasn't much I could do with one lap to go. I tried pushing hard, but it wasn't enough. We don't have anything to blame. We just didn't win.'

It was the third career victory for Camara and the first from first-year team Andretti Green Racing. Camara received a hug from IndyCar Series driver Tony Kanaan before he could extricate himself from the cockpit.

'It was amazing,' Camara said. 'We changed some things since the test at Nashville, and things started to come back like last year. We're starting to get better and better. The confidence on the team is building up again. Nashville was a pretty good run (third place). I think I had the best car there. My car was a little bit better today and that's why we won.

'I think we proved today that the team is back on track to be like last year.'

In fading to seventh place because of a handling issue, Howard saw his points lead deflate after eight of 12 events. He leads Wilson by 30 points (269-239). Klein is a point back, while Camara has 226 points. Cheever Racing's Nick Bussell is fifth (213) and Cunningham sixth (205). The next race is at the Kentucky Speedway on Aug. 13.

'We set the car up to be solid at the end of the race,' said Klein, who joined Camara in chasing down Cunningham late in the race. 'I was saving my tires and being very patient with throttle and steering. It paid off. We were catching them two-, three-, fourth-tenths a lap at the end of the race. If we didn't have that yellow, we could have finished second or maybe even first. That's the way it goes.

'I'm still extremely happy to be third and come home with some good points. Three top-three finishes in a row - we'll take that any day. The Klein Tools/Turn Key Forging team did an excellent job again. I have to thank Andretti Green Racing and Sam Schmidt Motorsports for the great job they do.'